The shadows of the pines are long now, striping the close-cut grass. There's a chill in the air, a breeze from off the Bay that makes me cross my arms and huddle in my sweater.
Dad gazes past me . . . at a pair of golfers. I look at them too. One stands, hands on hips, while his companion prepares to swing. With the stroke the iron blade of the club catches the sun, transmitting a flash. Instinctively I blink . . . too late to save my rods from saturation. Several seconds later, when my vision clears, I find Dad searching my eyes.
"It rips my heart when the light hurts you," he says.
A great love for him wells up. I need to hold him close. I step behind him, wrap his massive torso, press my chest against his vast broad back.
I can feel him shudder. Through his cotton shirt the tips of my fingers detect the beating of his heart. He was always my supporter, builder of my confidence, telling me I could do anything I set my mind to. Yes, he taught me, I had a handicap, but not one that need hold me back. If I loved the night, that's when he'd take me out for walks, tell me stories, teach me to ride a bicycle. If the midday sun blinded me, he would play catch with me at twilight, take me to the beach at dusk, teach me to swim against the sunset.
"She must have been so wounded." He's speaking now of Mom. "She wouldn't have done it otherwise."
"And angry," I say. "Most likely at herself."
He shakes his head. "At me."
I don't understand it and never expect to. Who can comprehend her parents' marriage? All I know is that to kill oneself one must be possessed by an enormous rage. My heart goes out to both of them—to her for her ferocious anger, to him for all the ravages wrought by guilt.
"I meant what I said, Kay." I wait for him to explain. "So proud you didn't give up. I tried to confuse you. I didn't want you to know. But deep inside I hoped you'd figure it out."
"You taught me the importance of truth," I remind him. "So you see, I couldn't flinch."
I walk him back to his bakery. At the door we embrace. Then I walk down to Arguello and catch the 33 bus. It follows a singular route, along the rim of Golden Gate Park, meanders through the Haight and the hills north of Twin Peaks, finally depositing me at the corner of Castro and Eighteenth, the intersection known informally as Hibernia Beach.
It's magic time when I arrive, the sky still darkening, my favorite hour in the city. The Castro is alive, people going rapidly about their affairs while others linger against the sides of buildings or sit on benches observing the passing scene. An urgent young man with an AIDS petition gently importunes me. A smiling young woman, hair like straw, offers me condoms from a basket.
Autumn chill has not discouraged the exposure of flesh. Here skin is always king. Tank tops abound, bare arms exhibit tattoos, hair glows, eyes glisten, men and women alike wear shorts to display attractive legs. Still too early for my meeting with Hilly, I decide to float with the crowd. As I walk pairs of eyes meet mine, lock in, then release me with a smile. This is the way here, and most of the time these street gazes are more ironic than lewd, gazes of what-might-have-been, wistful admiration exchanged. For a moment our lives cross, we esteem one another's beauty, then move on. The world turns, the clocks advance, yet for an instant we pause to acknowledge we share the earth and that each of us lives under the tyranny of his desire.
I think of Dad's strange intersections that night fifteen years ago—breathing the breath of life into Robbie Sipple, kneeling beside Skeleton-man, feeling his life ebb away. Did Dad commit a crime? Did any of them besides Billy? Yes, of course, and I cannot condone what they did. But, with the possible exception of Vasquez, I forgive them. They've been punished enough.
I pause at a pay phone, dial Joel. Ice Goddess Kirstin answers.
"You are very missible here," she says in her Swedish-accented singsong. Does she mean I'm missed, admissible or merely miserable? Before I can ask she turns the phone over to Joel.
"We need to talk. I know where the Sipple stuff is stashed."
I can feel his excitement through the wire. "Your dad?"
"He told me everything. We can break the T case, Joel, but we have to protect him and the others by blaming it all on Billy Hayes. He didn't tell me to do that, but it's the only way. He didn't even say dig it up or don't, just told me what happened and where it's buried." I pause, out of breath.
"Can you come over?"
"I'm meeting Hilly in half an hour. I'll drop by soon as we're finished."
Hilly looks sloppy tonight, eyes tired, hair wild, not gelled. She's wearing a faded Grateful Dead T-shirt and grungy fatigues. I'm pleased she's not dressed hot.
We attract no attention in our corner of The Duchess; it's clear we're not here to play. The loud scene swirling around us is fun. I enjoy the spectacle of funky women on the make. It's only the smoke I dislike, but then Hilly explains that here a cigarette dangling from a (preferably bee-stung) lip is considered a luscious come-on.
"I'm beat," she informs me, applying her beer bottle to her brow. "Shanley gives me shit, Charbeau gives me shit. I'm onto something, but those oafs don't see it. It's a crappy life, Kay, being a cop."
"Want to tell me about it?"
"Not especially." She peers at me. "You called this meet. What's up?"
I wonder why she's being secretive. Is she irritated with me or just feeling testy?
"There's a pimp on the Gulch they call Knob," I tell her. "Don't ask me his real name—I've no idea. He wheels and deals, acts as middleman for underage hustlers. He hangs out with two kids, Tommy and Boat, runaways who think he's God."
"So?"
"They're the three beat me up in the park. Last week the kids vandalized my place while Knob stood lookout downstairs."
"Great! Swear out a complaint. I'll pick 'em up."
I explain why she can't, that my only witness is a park hermit terrified of the police. He won't testify and would be ineffective if he did.
"So what's the connection to Tim Lovsey?"
"Someone put Knob up to it, wanted me scared off. Why do that if he isn't the killer?"
"How do you know someone put Knob up to it?"
"Just a hunch. But I think there's a soft spot, the runaways. I hear the one called Boat is mushy. If you pick him up for soliciting, get him alone, put on pressure, there's a chance he'll break. So I was thinking—suppose you squeeze him, turn him against Tommy, then turn the two of them on Knob. With two witnesses ready to testify against him, maybe Knob'll say who ordered me hit."
She studies me. "You got it all figured out."
"Just a suggestion, Hilly."
"You think like a cop."
"Is that a compliment?"
She smiles, sips some beer. "You're talking about entrapment. That's tricky business. There're all sorts of niceties—coercion, legal representation, 'fruit of the poisoned tree.' And it gets trickier when you're dealing with juveniles." She pauses. "This Knob—tell me more about him."
I tell her what I heard from Doreen and Sho, that Knob's ruthless, and in effect rules the Gulch.
She nods. "Probably got a record. Too bad you don't know his name."
I show her the photo I took of him at The Werewolf. She examines it.
"Looks like he's been around."
"I could go through the mug books."
"That's slow and a lot of times doesn't work. Prints are better. I can run them through the Automated Fingerprint ID System, A.F.I.S., do a national screening."
"You want Knob's fingerprints? We'll get 'em!"
She brightens up, we bring our heads close, quickly hatch a plan. After a while the butch bartender appears with another round of beers. An anonymous person has sent them over.
"She doesn't want to be pointed out," the butch informs us, squinting down one eye, raising the corresponding nostril. "Said to say you guys look very friendly so she thought she'd act friendly too."
Joel owns a run-down Victorian on Roosevelt Park Hill, not far from where Sipple lived in the upper Haight. The place has what realtors call "good bones," plus a fine rear-window view across the city to China Basin. A dusty granddaddy palm, centerpiece of a jungle, obscures the front of the house. Making my way beneath it, traipsing through a mesh of vines, I nearly trip over an abandoned rake. Joel, no surprise, is not big on domestic upkeep. A feral cat scoots beneath the stoop, gazes up at me, meows.
I notice a mezuzah beside the door. Ice Goddess opens up. Her long hair is parted in the center; her large Nordic eyes sparkle with spirituality. Joel found this willowy young blonde shortly after Rachel Glickman dumped him, a week after their second daughter left home for college. Rachel, dark, homely, serious and brilliant, is a tenured professor of sociology at San Francisco State. Kirstin, fair, beautiful, bright only in the wattage of her smile, makes fabric collages and reads runes for pay.
"Hi, Kay!" she moos.
We embrace.
"Am I still missible?" I ask.
She stands back, perplexed. "Golly, I hope not!"
So . . . whatever she was trying to tell me earlier will remain a mystery to us both.
She leads me to Joel's office in the attic, a clone of his cubicle at the Bay Area News. No Pulitzer certificate here but a similar decor—cartoons posted on the walls, dog-eared books jammed top first into shelves, a chaos of clippings, manuscripts, articles in progress, an old manual Underwood on the desk. Joel claims to despise computers.
He listens, fascinated, as I recount Dad's saga. When I'm finished he reminds me of one of my exchanges with Hale.
"You pointed out he had conflicting theories," Joel says. "Remember what he said?"
I think back. "Something like. . . once you understand what happened the theories no longer conflict."
Joel nods. "A tattoo-freak cute-boy T killer and a cop who gets rid of unwelcome evidence. Two separate crimes. Which means Hale more or less figured it out. Amazing!"
Joel's right: it is amazing. Hale's statement, so cryptic at the time, now makes sense. So, I ask, does this mean we're going to tell him where the stuff is buried?
Joel muses. "Obsessed old detective, forced out of his job, works the case fifteen years, finally finds missing evidence. Eureka! The old T case is solved!"
"It's a good story, but I don't like it, Joel."
"Neither do I." He starts to pace. "Hale's a paranoid and paranoids are dangerous. He won't buy that Billy Hayes did it all alone. He'll want to string up everyone . . . including your dad." He pauses. "Which leaves us with Hilly. All she wants is glory. She's got no axe to grind, so we can probably make a deal with her up front."
"We could just let it go, couldn't we?" I ask.
A knock on the door. Kirstin appears with a pot of herbal tea and three hand-painted Scandinavian cups.
"I am thinking your thirsts would use a good quenching," she says.
Joel smiles, the sweet my-heart-is-touched grin of an indulgent father whose daughter is showing off her goodness. Kirstin, I understand, is what he's always wanted: a shiksa innocent who reminds him of his time on the Haight—heroic days and nights of good dope, dumb talk and endless sex with doped-out girls wearing flowers in their stringy hair.
Kirstin pours the tea, settles on a hassock, exposes milky thighs. She sips, then, apropos of nothing, announces she and Joel have decided to make a baby. I turn to Joel; he glows with pride. Sure, it figures—he could use a second crack at youth. I've seen plenty of gray-haired men like him trotting around supermarkets with papooses on their backs, filling grocery carts with baby chow and Pampers.
He turns to me. "Could you bear to let it go?"
There's a side of me, I recognize, that could, that would just as soon leave buried evidence in the ground, especially as I now know that the T case has nothing to do with Tim. But there's another part of me that can't stand the notion of leaving things incomplete, that, like Dad, wants to know who Skeleton-man was.
"On what basis could Hilly get a warrant to dig?" I ask.
Joel smiles. "Tip from a confidential informant—you and me, kiddo. Not all that far-fetched. She's investigating the T case angle on the Tim Lovsey homicide. She starts asking around about the old case. Someone calls, tells her where the evidence is buried. She goes to a judge, says her source is reliable. Judge scowls. . . but lets her dig."
Kirstin's tea tastes of bitter herbs. I can barely stomach it, but Joel sips as if it's ambrosia. I suddenly wonder if Kirstin holds him in thrall with more than sex, with spells and secret potions.
"What about Debbie Hayes, Billy's widow?"
"I doubt she knows anything, and even if she does she won't make a fuss. She's getting Billy's pension. She won't want to screw that up."
"So Billy goes down as the bad guy?"
Joel shrugs. "In a major sense he was."
Kirstin, following our dialogue like a spectator at a tennis match, doesn't have a clue as to what we're talking about. Still I sense she's hurt at being ignored. When I turn to thank her for the tea, she flashes me a grateful smile.
"If it all works out," Joel says, "we'll be handing Hilly fame beyond her dreams."
"And if that encourages her to get to the bottom of who killed Tim, she'll deserve it," I reply.
I've no idea where Drake gets his food; the groceries I leave for him couldn't sustain a child. Where does he find the water he needs—to drink, bathe, launder his clothes? Where does he sleep when it's cold, store his covers when it rains, go to the toilet, shampoo his hair? When he ventures out of Sterling Park, where does he go? How can he survive in a wood the size of half a city block?
The homeless, I understand, have survival strategies, holes and caches, stocks of booty. Some get by collecting aluminum cans, others barter, still others find saleable treasure scrounging trash. There are soup kitchens in church basements, shelters offering toilets and hot showers, and the urban parks where they reside can be gold mines to those who know how to live off the detritus of a wealthy town.
I sit with Drake side by side on a bench, he, as always, perched as far from me as he can get. Filled with feelings yet unable to form attachments, he likes me at a distance, even loves me in his way, but up close I frighten him, am too solid, too real. Better a fantasy woman glimpsed at night through a window from afar than a live palpable female person seated in broad daylight three feet away.
The trees break up the sunlight, scatter it upon his face. We talk about his future. He hopes to go back to school one day, resume studying chemistry. He's from Oregon, misses the rain. His favorite color is green. He has a sister. Photochemistry is interesting. Do I use Kodak Dektol? Do I believe someone really wants me dead?
His non sequiturs touch me.
"Do you think someone does?" I ask.
He turns away, nods. "I do," he says gravely. "But he will have to kill me first."
We're cruising slowly along Polk in Hilly's old Volvo, the kind that in California seems to last forever. Hilly is driving, I'm in the passenger seat, an actor named Rob Mathews is in back.
Rob's in his forties, well groomed, dressed tonight like an affluent dentist. I met him a few years ago when I did some fashion photography for his wife, an ad exec. He's a member of the company at Berkeley Rep, specializing in middle-aged character roles. He's intrigued, he tells me, by the proposed gig.
"Never played a chicken hawk before," he says, stroking his mustache. "But how tough can it be? I like girls in their twenties, so why not boys in their teens?"
Hilly guffaws.
Rob leans forward. He's eager, wants to internalize the role. "How should I behave? Timid or bold?"
"Either way," I tell him. "Some guys are cocky, most are scared. They know if they get caught they'll lose everything, job, wife, kids. You gotta be obsessed to take the risk."
Rob understands.
"There he is." I point out Knob as we cruise by. He's standing alone in his usual spot between Bush and Sutter, back propped against a wall beside an all-male video store.
"Looks mean," Rob says.
"Is mean," I tell him. I slink down in my seat in case Knob looks up.
Hilly asks Rob if he wants her to make another pass. Rob says that isn't necessary, he saw Knob clear enough. Hilly drives two blocks, turns the corner, cuts over to Larkin, stops.
"What's my best lead-in?"
I turn to Rob. He's cool. In his shoes I'd have the jitters.
I advise: "Tell Knob you hear he's the man to see. He'll probably pretend he doesn't know what you're talking about. If he asks who steered you to him, just say 'a friend.' If he insists on a name tell him you can't give it up, it's a matter of personal honor. He'll laugh. . . but that'll build his confidence. Offer to buy him a drink."
Hilly hands him an envelope. "The photos inside are sterile. Hand them to him discreetly at the bar. Tell him this is the type of kid you want—young, long hair, smooth. Since you don't want him to think he's being set up, make a big point that for legal reasons you don't want a kid under eighteen. What you want is someone who looks underage. Can he fix you up?"
"Great! But what if he does?"
"He won't. Not tonight. Too risky," Hilly says. "You'll have to see him two or three times before he'll agree to do business. Show him you understand this, that you came by to get acquainted, build trust. The important thing is to get his prints on the photos. Don't worry if you touch them. We'll eliminate yours, go for what's left."
Rob nods, gets out of the car. Hilly and I wish him luck then take off. We've agreed to meet him in an hour at the Buena Vista. We drive for a time, threading through the Tenderloin. It's a weekday night; people are hanging out. The hotels down here don't rate neon signs. You can see the stains on the window shades even from the street.
"Jesus, what a gutter!" Hilly says.
"I don't know, it doesn't seem all that bad."
She glances at me. "Yeah, you can say that. You live up on Russian. No whores or homeless up there. The air's sweet. You got a pretty view. Every once in a while you come down, take a few pictures, then go back up. That's fine, Kay. But reality's down here where it stinks full-time.'
"Ah," I say, "the cynical cop!"
"You bet!" She bites her lip.
I'm annoyed. I don't like being patronized. I decide to smack her back.
"Of course you don't slum around," I tell her. "With your cozy flat in the Castro, your cat, your lifestyle, your hot dyke bars. Give me a break, Hilly. I take a few pictures, you make a few arrests—after which we both go home. Frankly, I don't see the difference."
She chews on that as we run a gauntlet of addicts clustered around the door to a Cambodian restaurant.
"You're right. I'm feeling mean tonight. Sorry to take it out on you."
"What's the matter?"
"The job. Believe me, I could tell you a few things."
"Please do,"' I urge.
Again she bites her lip. Then it comes, the torrent. Charbeau, she tells me, has been riding her. Last week he called her in, told her she wasn't cutting it. When she asked what was wrong he said it wasn't her work, it was the way she strutted around. "I got nothing against female detectives," he told her, "fact I think they're great. What I can't stand is anyone, male or female, who fucks me up with a colleague."
She knew immediately he was talking about Vasquez. "You don't mess with a guy like that," Charbeau told her. "Whatever you think of him, you don't talk to him the way you did."
I ask if this goes back to the incident by the elevators. Hilly shakes her head. "Something else. He blew up when I asked him about the soap."
She pulls into a bus stop, cuts the engine. Though I've no idea what she's going to say, I feel my pulse speed up.
"There's stuff I didn't tell you," she says. "I first noticed it out at Wildcat Canyon after Shanley sent you home. Timothy's torso had been washed with a very strong type of medicinal soap, so strong you could still smell it on him in the rain. Sweet and peppery. Like licorice."
The word sends a tremor across my chest.
"We decided to keep it quiet. Might turn out to be important. Then, when I went through the T case file, naturally I looked for references. Nothing until I got to Sipple. Remember, he wasn't carved, he died in the hospital of a heart attack. But a couple of the cops who found him—Hayes and your dad—mentioned a strong-smelling soap. So I got this weird idea: Here we got a copycat T killer homicide with several things out of whack—paint instead of tattoos, a big number 'seven' lest we miss the point, and the torso washed with scented soap . . . which resembled what happened to Sipple, but to no one else. Remember what I was looking for? Insiders who knew the T killer's M.O. But here we got this similarity to Sipple, but not to any of the rest. So I start thinking maybe the leak didn't come from the T case task force, but from someone who was just in on Sipple. Then's when I went to see Vasquez. Maybe he'd have an idea on two, maybe he wouldn't, but I wanted him to know he hadn't intimidated me when he told me to move my fanny in the hall."
Now I'm shaking. Could Hilly be right? What if Tim was killed by one of the five? Since it couldn't be Hayes or Dad, that leaves just three—Wainy, Ricky, Vasquez.
"The lieutenant tells me to close the door, doesn't invite me to sit. He stares at me very cold. I guess the asshole thinks I've come to apologize. He hears me out. When I'm done, he keeps staring at me like there must be more. I stare right back. No way am I going to blink. So our little staring contest goes on awhile, then he asks if I'm an ambitious cop. Sure, I tell him, I'm ambitious . . . to clear my cases just like everyone else. I'm investigating a homicide and I've come to him for help. If he doesn't choose to assist, fine, I'll go on about my work."
Hilly smiles. "I wasn't sure I had the balls to stand up to the guy. Now I'm wondering if standing up to him was so smart."
"Why?"
"Something scary about him. Way he looks at you like he's looking through you, through your eyes into your brain."
Vasquez. Suddenly my Crane theory doesn't look so neat. I prodded Crane, threatened to ruin his reputation, so why wouldn't he want me beaten and my photographic files destroyed? But that doesn't prove he was Tim's killer. How could he have known about the soap?
Vasquez knew. And then I remember something else, that Vasquez is in charge of Felony Prostitution. He could have known Tim. He could even have killed him. But why would Vasquez do that? It doesn't make sense.
Hilly's still talking. Meantime my head's swelling with heat.
". . . word on the lieutenant is he takes protection money, that he's got deals going all over town. On Polk Gulch, here in the Tenderloin, on Capp Street in the Mission, the real bottom of the barrel." She peers at me. "You're looking queasy, Kay. You all right?"
"Migraine," I lie. In fact, I feel as though the top of my head's about to blow off.
"Anyhow, makes you wonder, Charbeau standing up for a guy like that, while I'm just trying to do my job." She shrugs, glances at her watch. "What d'you say we head over to the Buena Vista, scope out Rob?"
We find him standing at the bar, enjoying a Scotch, displaying a victor's smile. No need to ask whether he got Knob's prints; he not only got them, he never touched the pictures himself, just handed the envelope to Knob, watched as he went through them, waited until he replaced them, then took the treasured envelope back.
"Not a bad guy once you get to know him," Rob says. "Brute type, but with a certain savage charm."
Hilly excuses herself; she wants to rush the photos to the fingerprint lab. I pick up the tab for Rob's drinks, then buy him dinner.
"You won't have to see Knob again," I assure him.
"I'm thrilled, Kay. Frankly, I was scared."
"I never would have known," I tell him.
Rob beams. "Must mean I'm a good actor."
Sasha spends the night. It's been days since we've seen each other. He's been on duty and I've been busy exploring the oddly connected trails of my life. Tim, Dad, Mom, the Judge, Ariane . . . Knob, Crane, Vasquez ... and perhaps other strands I may be too close to or too blind to see.
Sasha, as it happens, bathes with perfumed soap, which imbues his skin with the aroma of sandalwood. I ask him why he likes it.
"Don't you?" he asks.
"Of course. Just curious why you chose it."
"Actually, I never much liked scented toiletries," he says. We're lying side by side naked in my bed, in contact from our shoulders to our calves. "Shaving soaps, men's fragrances, lotions. People give them as gifts. Usually I take one sniff, then pass the stuff on. But one day. . ." He stops. "This is embarrassing."
I nudge him. "Go on!"
"A lady I was seeing—"
"Lady?"
"She was. But so as not to offend you, we'll call her a woman. Anyway, I was staying over one night."
"As you're accustomed to do."
He nods. "And in the morning when I took a shower and used her soap it was scented with sandalwood and I liked it very much. So, though I never saw this lady, this woman, again—"
"As was also your custom."
He laughs. "Although we stopped seeing one another, having failed to fall in love, I did in fact fall in love with her bath soap . . . and have been using it ever since."
"Great story, Sasha!"
"Glad you like it, Kay. And I hope someday you too will look back and recall receiving a similar gift from me—a scent sniffed, a dish tasted, perhaps some little trick I've taught."
"Bed trick?"
"Wouldn't that be fine?"
"You're a great lover, Sasha. You know you are. I've learned a lot from you. Felt, you know, special things. I hope we're going to have a future together."
"We will," he says, firmly.
I turn, plant my elbow, prop my head on my fist, so I can look straight into his dreamy eyes.
"Here's my secret, Sasha. I'm speaking seriously now. My fondest wish is to see colors. And, surprise!—some nights with you I actually do. Oh, not real colors, of course. Sadly, that's not possible. But the equivalent, the sense of colors. It's hard to explain."
"I love what you're saying."
"It's like a flowering. Objects take on a different dimension. There's an unexpected depth, a richness ... which is what I've always thought colors must endow. I dream more vivid dreams, see more brilliantly. The light opens up, hues are revealed."
I turn to lie on my back, stare up at the ceiling. "You see, I have ways of knowing colors—from music, passages in Wagner, Berlioz, Scriabin, Debussy, Rimsky-Korsakov. From literature too—the greens in Walt Whitman, golds and yellows in Gerard Manley Hopkins, Conrad's reds and blues. I also know colors from the great painters. I look at the paintings and imagine. . . Poussin's blue, Degas's green, van Gogh's yellow, Rembrandt's brown."
He leans over me to kiss my eyes.
"My mom was a music teacher," I continue. "She tried to teach me colors via correspondences with sounds—the chromatic scale, orchestral color, how harmony could be thought of as a kind of color-mixing too. We'd listen to records. She'd make analogies between the sounds of the different instruments and the intensities of different hues. The yellow sounds of the clarinets, violets of the oboes, reds of the trumpets. Crimson flutes. Dark blue cellos. Aquamarine violas. Pure blue violins. We'd spend hours listening. I tried to memorize the correspondences. The keys too. She told me D Major was purple, D Minor was tawny, A Major was green. In the end, unfortunately, her lessons didn't take. She was so disappointed I didn't have a good ear. Later she took my artistic ambitions as rejection. Music, you see, was such a perfect medium for a color-blind girl. She thought I went to art school just to spite her. She was wrong, of course. I found my way there, discovered black-and-white photography, a way of making pictures in which the line and shape take precedence over the field."
I turn back to him. "Still, I wish I could have pleased her, Sasha. At least learned from her, learned the colors."
"You're not blind, Kay."
"Not at all. My whole life's about seeing—looking, peering, selecting, creating images. And who knows? If I could see colors, most likely my colors wouldn't be the same as yours. Scientists say it can take but the slightest difference in a chromosome, a single amino acid, to change the way a person perceives a hue. But never mind! I'm talking about the colors I do see. Sometimes I see them in my mind via sound and touch and smell, but the best time for me, the time I see them most beautifully, is when the two of us make love. All of which is my way of telling you, Sasha, that this woman already has a story to tell, for she has already received your gift. And—need I add?—still longs for more. . . ."
Midmorning I phone Dad: "You okay?"
"Sure, darlin'. You?"
"I'm doing good."
"Glad to hear it. What we talked about—that was bound to hurt."
"It cleared the air. Thanks for sharing it with me." I pause. "We'll probably try and dig up the evidence now. Unless you object."
A long pause. "Go ahead."
"You're sure?"
"Do what you have to do."
"Billy can take the rap. Joel says his widow won't be hurt."
"Poor Billy!"
"Poor you! But don't worry—we won't throw you to the wolves. Not Ricky or Wainy either. No guarantees for Vasquez."
"A word of advice, darlin'."
"Please?"
"Go for it, but watch out for Vasquez. He plays dirty, a dirty game."
The phone rings. It's Caroline Gifford at Zeitgeist.
"You won't believe this, Kay. I just got off a call from Sarah Lashaw. Says she wants to buy thirty or so prints, a representative selection of your work. Wants to come by tomorrow, make choices." Caroline pauses. "Isn't that fab?"
"No, sorry, Caroline, it's not."
"Hey, girlfriend, this is business! You can't refuse a serious buyer. We're talking twenty-five, thirty thousand dollars here."
"I understand, but, see, Lashaw isn't buying, she's bribing, and I'm not in the bribe-taking business. Trust me on this?"
A silence. "Oh, I trust you all right. But I gotta tell you, Kay—sometimes it really hurts."
I keep thinking of Ariane: Where is she now? To what extent was she involved in Tim's death? I've talked to David deGeoffroy twice since Tim's funeral, and each time he asks after her with special tenderness. I'm still convinced I haven't heard the whole story from him and will only learn the rest from her. . . if I'm fortunate enough to find her.
I think about the Lovsey twins going through adolescence on their own, and then the forces that must have driven them to work the street. I think of their deft hands and brilliant minds, their interchangeability, androgyny and charm, their love of juggling, tumbling, pulling coins and scarves out of orifices, most of all of the bravery with which they faced the world. They never allowed themselves to feel degraded no matter the disdain in which their work was held. Magician-nighthawk purveyors of lust, gorgeous sensuous objects of desire, they entered the dark subconscious of the city, maintaining their dignity in the face of all its sleaze and scorn.
I walk into an old-fashioned professional building on lower Market, the kind with a cage elevator and echoing lobby. An elderly attendant with dragon breath operates the apparatus. The cage jerks and trembles its way up, depositing me on the eighth floor after numerous false stops.
The corridor here is lined with doors with bubble-glass panels bearing the names of tenants. Aromas ooze out of open transoms—mouthwash from the waiting room of Lawrence Fisher, D.D.S.; cigar smoke from the suite of Courter & Lee, Admiralty Insurers; stale coffee and pizza from the hole-in-the-wall workplace of Susan Marzik & Associates, Private Investigations. But from my destination, the law office of J. F. Judd, Esq., Criminal Defense, there is no smell, no essence, no odor at all.
The receptionist, a middle-aged battle-axe with a bitter mouth, gives me the once-over as she snatches away my card. Five minutes later a squat bald man with canny eyes waddles out to greet me.
"Hi! I'm Judd," he says, escorting me to his office. "Thanks for dropping by."
"You were expecting me?"
He gestures me to the client chair. "I figure you came to settle Lovsey's account."
I examine him as he sits behind his desk. Late thirties, flashy tie, flabby jowls, grossly overweight.
"That's not why I'm here," I tell him.
"Look, the client's deceased. I'm open to settlement."
I'm not prepared for this, but what the hell? I offer him two hundred dollars.
While Judd thinks it over, I peer around. His office is a den of files, lawbooks, briefs and, on the walls, satiric Daumier barrister cartoons. He is, I quickly understand, small-time. No big murder cases here, just penny ante stuff—drug possession, solicitation, petty theft.
When I turn back he's studying my face.
"Beaten up, weren't you?"
Jesus! "Does it still show?"
He shakes his head. "Not at all."
"Then how—"
"Tim told me. Wanted me to nail the son of a bitch. I told him I'm a defense attorney, not a prosecutor, his friend should go to the cops. That was the last time we spoke. A day or two later he was killed." Judd shrugs and shakes his head.
Suddenly I feel heat rising from my chest to my head, the same sensation I felt when Hilly told me about Vasquez. Ariane—it had to be! But who beat her up and why? Knowing I must anchor myself, I think of Rita's admonishment in aikido: Find your center, Kay. Root yourself.
"It wasn't me he was talking about."
"You said—"
"I was beaten afterwards." Judd raises his eyebrows. "Do you remember exactly what Tim said?"
Judd neither nods nor shakes his head, just continues to stare, waiting for me to explain.
"The night he was killed we were supposed to meet. He wanted my advice. He was upset, scared. Maybe what he told you had to do with what he was going to tell me."
Judd turns away. "Attorney-client privilege extends after death."
"But you already told me some of it. I'm just asking for the details."
He widens his eyes, body language for What's in it for me? I understand him perfectly: for chump change attorney Judd would sell his soul.
I make him an offer: "I'll settle Tim's account."
"In full?"
I nod. "Providing you tell me everything."
In fact, $1,250 will empty out my bank account. But then, I remember, I just turned down a fortune from Sarah Lashaw. I reach into my camera bag, whip out my checkbook, turn on my micro tape recorder at the same time. I write Judd a check, show it to him, then pull it back.
He smiles. "You wouldn't stiff me now, would you, Ms. Farrow?"
"Is that what you're used to—getting stiffed?"
"Unhappily, yes."
"You'll get this when you tell me everything, from the first time you met Tim Lovsey to the last time you spoke."
He studies me a moment, swivels around in his chair, starts to talk. It isn't an uninteresting story. Tim was picked up on Polk Gulch, got into a car, took a hundred bucks to receive a blow job from an undercover cop. A second after Tim accepted the money, the cop put him under arrest. Then it was off to the Hall of Justice, with a little conversation en route. What Tim needed, the cop advised, was a good lawyer to settle his case. When Tim said he didn't know any lawyers, the cop recommended Judd, then stopped so Tim could phone him from a booth.
"Police officer scam," Judd explains. "Arrest a guy, tell him he needs a lawyer, steer him to one who knows how to deal. Everyone's protected—the cop gets paid off, the lawyer gets his fee, the arrestee gets his freedom and can't claim later he was solicited for a bribe."
"How much?"
"In this case five hundred. I negotiated it down from a grand."
"For which you billed him twelve-fifty."
"Of which my cut was seven-fifty. A fair fee, believe me. I was called out of bed."
"You're saying Tim never paid you?"
Judd shrugs. "He was a hustler. What'd you expect?"
I don't believe him. He wouldn't have listened to Tim's story about the beaten girl if he hadn't already been paid. I very much want to ask the arresting officer's name, but decide to hold off till I hear the rest.
"No jail, no bail, no court appearance," Judd continues. "The matter was privately settled. Then, like I mentioned, last month Tim calls me about this girl, says she's been badly beaten up. He's pissed, wants me to represent her, bring criminal charges against the guy, sue him, the works. When I tell him I don't do that kind of work, he says he'll find someone who does. Next thing, I read in the newspaper he's been killed."
"Did he say who beat the girl?"
Judd shakes his head.
"I think he did," I tell him. "And when you heard the name you got scared."
"Think whatever you like, missy. Twelve-fifty only buys so much."
Missy! What an asshole! "Well, you got me there, Mr. Judd," I tell him. "For me twelve-fifty's a stretch.'' I search his eyes. "It was a rich man beat the girl, wasn't it?"
Judd shrugs. Does he know I'm bluffing? Did he sell the news of Tim's intentions and by so doing get Tim killed? Is he such a cheap piece of crud that even after collecting on that, he sent the bill for twelve-fifty figuring he could squeeze it out of Tim's estate?
"You're not going to tell me. I understand. At least give me the name of the cop."
Judd smiles. "Too sweet a deal. I'm not about to mess that up."
"Fine." I stand. "Then you don't get paid." I tear up my check, sprinkle the pieces on his desk.
He opens his center drawer, brushes the pieces into it. "You're a welsher, missy, but your check taped back together'll be enough to persuade a small claims judge."
"Fuck you! You're the one welshed. And now I'm going to fry your ass."
"What're you talking about?"
"Friend of mine, an investigative journalist, is going to turn you inside out—bank accounts, every case you ever tried or settled, who your friends are, which ones are cops. A sleazebag like you—something's bound to turn up. By the time we're done with you, you'll be disbarred."
"You can't prove a thing!"
I hold up my tape recorder. "I think I can." I start toward the door.
"Hey! Wait! We can work this out."
I turn. He's up now, menacing, coming around the side of his desk.
"Gimme that tape!"
I laugh. He lunges at me. I grasp his wrist, turn, throw him across the room. He crashes into his filing cabinet. When he rises I note that his forehead's cut.
"Bitch!"
"Have to do better than that, fatso."
He lunges again. This time I knife-hand the side of his neck, then back-fist him across the nose. He crumples to the floor. I stare down at him. He looks pathetic. I take his picture twice.
A knock on the door. It's Battle-axe. "Everything all right, Mr. Judd."
"Yeah, go back to work." He glares up at me: "I'll get you for assault."
"God, you're dumb!" I show him the recorder again. "It's still running. You attacked me. I defended myself. It's all on tape."
He touches his nose, winces. His eyes go meek. "What do you want?"
"Names. The rich man who beat up the girl, the cop who took the bribe."
"They'll kill me if I tell."
"Who's 'they'?"
"Listen, please—"
"You listen! You've been stupid. When I walked in here I didn't know about a beating. I just wanted to know who arrested Tim. You could have refused, written off your twelve-fifty, sent me on my way. Instead you got greedy, showed off, as much as admitted you sold Tim out. Now it's time to get smart. You've got my card. Tell me what I want to know or take what's coming to you. You got three days."
As I leave, old Battle-axe gives me the evil eye.
"Your boss needs help. Got bandages?" I ask. I bring my face close. "Does he often attack women? You really should speak to him about that."
Sasha wants us to spend Thanksgiving at an inn in the wine country or perhaps south in Pebble Beach or on Big Sur. The idea is to luxuriate—sleep late, make love on crisp linen sheets, eat breakfast in bed, bathe in a hot tub, take long romantic walks in the vineyards or on the beach. It sounds great. I give him my blessing. Three hours later he calls back. We'll have to spend the holiday in the city; every luxury place in Northern California's booked.
Not to worry, I tell him. My idea of a perfect Thanksgiving is to catch a movie, hit Chinatown for a platter of grilled salt-and-pepper shrimp, walk home holding hands, make love, snuggle close, then fall to sleep.
I stop at the farmers' market on the Embarcadero, peruse the produce, buy a bag of clementines, which have just come into season. Due to my achromatopsia, eggplants and tomatoes appear the same shade, namely black. But color-blindness, I feel, has its advantages, forcing me, unable to make quick decisions based on colors, to look carefully at shapes. Yes, it is the shapes of things—their forms, not their fields—that reach my eye. Color-blindness has taught me to look steadily, view the world, discern.
Tonight, playing with my telescope, studiously avoiding the terrace of the Judge, I reacquaint myself with my neighbors, then sweep the city searching for points of interest.
Alcatraz, the forbidding rock, fills my eyepiece. Then the apex of Coit Tower, and several office buildings downtown outlined in lights for the holidays. But, as always, it's the smaller structures of North Beach and Telegraph Hill that engage me, variegated cubes arrayed, stacked, fitting together like pieces in an intricate, superbly constructed puzzle. Doors, windows, streetlamps, houses, stores, churches, playgrounds, schools—the variety and complexity of shapes is music to my eyes.
I realize that what I love best about San Francisco, and have rarely found anyplace else, is that here all these forms and shapes add up to something I can grasp. Each piece, each part, fits together to make the whole. The city is a unity, and now I wish that the mysteries that taunt me, the maze of photos pinned to my office wall, will come clear as well.
In the morning I leave half my clementines on the bench for Drake, whom I haven't seen in two days. An hour later, when I go out again and cruise the spot, I find my package gone. I only hope it was Drake who took it, not some other denizen of Russian Hill. Since he has declared himself, as much as promised to protect me with his life, I figure the least I owe him is decent nourishment.
I meet Joel at the Bay Area News, then we saunter over to the Transcendental Cafe for lunch. The late-autumn light catches the varnished tarot cards that paper the wall, creating a reflective sheen. The resident swami sits at his usual table reading the fortune of a boy with tresses.
I fill Joel in on what Hilly told me about Vasquez and the scented soap, then play him the tape of my exchange with Judd. After listening to the noise of our fight, he gazes at me with mock awe.
"Gosh, Kay—you really do beat guys up!"
But he's confused about the rest, not clear on the identity of Tim's beaten friend. I tell him about Ariane, David deGeoffroy, the Zamantha Illusion, the twins' heist of deGeoffroy's savings, Ariane's strange identity as Amoretto, the key hidden in Tim's molding, and how I met Courtney Hill in Ariane's vacated flat.
"Dammit!" he exclaims when I'm finished. "Why didn't you tell me all this before?"
"It didn't seem relevant and I didn't want to distract you. Then, yesterday, I realized it may have been the reason Tim was killed."
Joel nods. "What about Vasquez?"
"Suppose he was the cop who picked Tim up?"
"A lieutenant, commander of the felony prostitution squad?"
"Why not? He's got a nice house. I'm sure he can use some extra cash. Suppose he freelances after hours? Cops run scams all the time."
"Actually, now that I think about it, it's a good one too. Vasquez knows the streets, knows the pickup lines. Boys and girls—he goes after them all. They take his cash, he's got them cold. He doesn't even have to have sex with them if he doesn't want to. Just make the deal, fork over, snap on the cuffs."
"How can we be sure?"
"That'll be hard. But since both Hilly and your dad say he's dirty there's probably something there. Let me ask around, see what I can find."
"When do you want to tip off Hilly on the buried treasure?"
"Soon. Keep working with her, Kay. As for Judd"—Joel smiles—"that was a pretty good bluff: your friend the investigative journalist. Only trouble is . . . it would take me months."
"I think Judd'll call."
"I think so too. But be careful, kiddo. Knock a guy around, humiliate him like you did, you may end up facing a mad dog."
Hilly and I meet again at The Duchess. Tonight her hair is beautifully slicked back. She's glowing with triumph. She's got a match on Knob's prints.
"Your friend's a bad boy, Kay. Up to his ears in shit." She pulls out a computer printout, reads off a list of names:
"Raymond Crogan, a.k.a. Ray Crow, a.k.a. Ray 'Crowbar,' a.k.a. Ray 'Knob' Cross. Arrests go back to his teens—stealing, pandering, soliciting, battery, attempted vehicular homicide . . . a few more. Get this: two California felony convictions, the first for burglary, two-year sentence, fourteen months served, the second for felonious assault upon a police officer—five years sentenced and served at Pelican Bay." Hilly looks up at me. "Bottom line, under California three-strikes law he's vulnerable."
"Meaning . . ."
"Beating up on you and stealing your camera was a big mistake. If a D.A. can prove it to a jury, he'll get twenty-five to life."
Great! I think, and then, how strange that Knob would take such a chance. Which may explain why he pulled the pillowcase over my head and sent his boys up to my flat while he stood lookout below.
"He must have been paid a great deal of money to take chances like that," I tell her. "Knob may be many things, but he isn't stupid . . . and to risk life in prison to settle a score would be stupid beyond belief."
Hilly agrees. "Hiring out kids for sex is a felony too, and he does that every night. Which makes it even more risky. Unless—" She grins.
"What?"
"He's got protection."
Something about the smile on her face tells me she's tasting blood. What better vindication, after all, than to nail Vasquez for taking bribes?
"What're you going to do about it?" I ask, hoping to taunt her into action.
"I like your idea of hauling in Knob's boys, breaking them, turning them into witnesses. Trouble is . . . if I take this to Charbeau, he'll shoot me down or put Shanley in charge. And if I try it without authorization I'll get shit-canned even if it works."
She ponders. "Thanksgiving's coming up. Shanley and Charbeau'll both be out of town. I was going to drive down to L.A., spend the holiday with my folks, but now I got a better idea." She squints. "With everyone away I'll have the field to myself. If I handle things right, it could be over before anyone gets back."